The Martian was a financial success. It grossed $228.4 million in the United States &, Canada and $401.7 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $630.2 million against a budget of $108 million. Worldwide, it was the highest-grossing Fox film of 2015 and the tenth-highest-grossing film of that year overall.
Who is Mark Watney in real-life?
OK, I admit, Mark Watney is not a real person, and being stranded on Mars is not enviable, even if it means you get to be played by Matt Damon. In The Martian, the astronaut is left on the planet after a manned mission gone wrong.
What is the movie The Martian based on?
The Martian was nominated for the Oscars and is based on a novel with the same name written by Andy Weir. It revolves around Matt’s character, astronaut Mark Watney, who separates from his crew and is presumed dead by them.
Can you grow potatoes in human poop?
Yes, and not just potatoes, says Bruce Bugbee, a real-life botanist and NASA scientist. In “The Martian,” Watney grows his own food by planting potato eyes in the ground. He fertilizes the plants with human waste and creates liquid water out of rocket fuel.
How long did Mark Watney stay on Mars?
Mark Watney’s crew made it back to Mars orbit to collect him on sol 549, which means that Watney spent 564 days, or approximately eighteen months, on Mars. After the first six sols, he spent this time all alone, although at certain points in the story, he was able to communicate with NASA authorities.
Who played skinny Mark Watney?
8. IF AN ACTOR CAN’T ALTER THEIR WEIGHT FOR A ROLE, A BODY DOUBLE CAN FILL IN. When Matt Damon was filming The Martian (2015), he wanted to lose 30 to 40 pounds to portray astronaut Mark Watney after he had been surviving on meager rations for years.
How long is a sol?
Mars is a planet with a very similar daily cycle to the Earth. Its ‘sidereal’ day is 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22 seconds, and its solar day 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds. A Martian day (referred to as “sol”) is therefore approximately 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.
Can you really grow potatoes on Mars?
Potatoes can grow in ‘extreme’ Mars-like conditions, a new NASA-backed experiment shows. … Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, survives by fertilizing Martian soil with his feces, slicing potatoes, and planting the cuttings in the soil. This eventually grows him enough food to last hundreds of days.
How much did it cost to save Mark Watney?
In 2015’s The Martian, for example, Damon plays astronaut Mark Watney, who requires an approximately $200 billion rescue from Mars.
How did they film weightlessness in The Martian?
All of our zero gravity moments are cheated with stunt wire work. We never did the sort of things that they did on Apollo 13, when they took them up in what they call the ‘Vomit Comet‘, which gives the weightlessness. You get 40 seconds of weightlessness to perform a scene, and then go back up again and do it again.
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Are potato eyes?
Each tuber or potato has several buds. These are the small sprouts we call potato “eyes.” It’s from these buds that new potato plants can grow. So even though a potato’s eyes can’t help it see underground, they can help grow more potatoes!
How did Watney make water?
In “The Martian,” Damon’s character, astronaut Mark Watney, produces water by burning leftover rocket fuel and extracts the hydrogen from the resulting chemical reaction. … They must water their potatoes and keep track of how much water they administer and how often.
Can we grow plants on Mars yes or no?
Therefore, under Martian gravity, the soil can hold more water than on Earth, and water and nutrients within the soil would drain away more slowly. Some conditions would make it difficult for plants to grow on Mars. … This is because Mars is about 50 million miles farther away from the sun.
How many days are in a sol on Mars?
A Mars solar day has a mean period of 24 hours 39 minutes 35.244 seconds, and is customarily referred to as a “sol” in order to distinguish this from the roughly 3% shorter solar day on Earth.
How Andy Weir wrote the Martian?
Weir began writing the story in serialized posts on his personal website. When he finished, readers asked him to publish an e-book version on Amazon — where it became a runaway best-seller and caught the eyes of both Crown Publishing (for a physical book) and Twentieth Century Fox (for a movie).
What does Sol mean in the film The Martian?
Keeping time on Mars
One solar day on Mars, called a “sol,” is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, according to the Planetary Society. Watney measures the time he spends stranded on Mars not in days but in “sols,” which is how NASA keeps track of time on Mars in real life.